Manual hinting

I have done a lot of panoramas in the past, but have always used AutoStitch to put them together. I, too, wouldn't mind hinting at which pictures should be stitched together...at least until there is no longer a need for it.

I like this idea, too. The way I imagined it is like this:

In the photo uploader, the user could mark individual photos using a toolset included in the photosynther. These marks would be visible before the upload in the program, but not afterwards once the synth shows up on the site.

For elements that might confuse the photosynther, you could 'highlight' areas that it should NOT consider (i.e. mirrors, water, pets, etc.) for figuring out where a photo was taken and what it is of.

For elements that might help the photosynther figure things out, there are several different options. For example, you could draw a colored/labeled line tracing a the same corner in multiple independent photographs, which would help the program know that the line labeled X was the same corner across multiple photos.

Hopefully this makes as much sense to some one else as it does to me.

I agree completely. I just uploaded my first photosynth designed for the purpose, expecting a high synth number. It turned out to be only 12% because most of the pictures weren't matched with each other. I'm interested to know what aspect of the photos causes this.
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=2...

I rather like the way syth is automatic and doesn't require manual alignment. I see this as a plus point. The algorithm will be perfected over time.

I would basically like it to autostitch by default, but in the case of my first stitch, let me then go in and say "Hey, dumbass software, that row of shrubs there is the same on in this image, seen from around this direction" so then it can take my 20 sets of 5 images and make 1 set of images. It would also allow for more gaps in photographic coverage.

The "gaps in photographic coverage.. pictures not matched with each other"
These issues could be fixed by letting the user manually connect 2 or more syth halves together...Lets say there is 360 view of a scene but it didn't quite connect all the photos sets, the user could help fill in the gaps by manually numbering or visually stacking the images according to right, left, up, down... so at least when viewers navigate in the UI they can jump to the next closest photo set in some kind of logical order.

sounds like a great idea!

the manual part could be make easier than finding specific points in an orhpanhed image:
- drag one photo from one "orphan synth" to one specific image in another "orphan synth".
- then the "synther" would take it from there.

see here for example
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=6...

217 images
16 "orphan synths" and 17 "orphan images"

Some sort of manual override/hint is essential for Photosynth to be more than just a toy.

I really think there needs to be some form of manual matching, I have been trying to get my first 'real' synth set up, 1st time it came up 40%, so I removed a few orphan photos, tried again, got 49%, and a much better synth than the first time, but then I removed a couple more orphan photos, uploaded again, and its down to 30% synthy now, and even less 'connected' than the first two attempts! I tried a 4th time with exactly the same photos, and it came out at 29%, then a 5th time (same photos again) and its at 42%! I don't expect it to be the same each time, its just frustrating to see previously matched photos becoming orphaned at the next attempt, when it should have been a better success rate. Very cool tool though, I have to admit that!

Good idea... though it should be something you activate by choice... IE operate the program most of the time in full automatic mode, but have the option of stepping down through progressive stages of manual intervention and correction for difficult stuff.
After all the human eye and brain themselves have a certain susceptibility to optical illusions even with the benefit of stereoscopic, full-motion vision and years of experience. It's not unreasonable to expect that a comparitively simple computer algorithm operating on a pile of static 2D images with no prior experience or knowledge of the layout or context can have occasional hiccups. I'm actually damn impressed it works anywhere near as well as it does!

But I have had one recently where I couldn't see any reason that the shots wouldn't stitch together 100%, but it's had some strange brainfart that means a load of images from near the bottom of a slight hill have ended up conceptually floating in space 20ft above those at the top of the hill & in the wrong direction. Still all synthed with each other, just not connecting to the top area properly and the point cloud makes it pretty obvious. I think a few minutes telling it just for a few crucial pics "that small shape on the horizon is actually the same building that's a gradually larger and more recognisable structure in all the other images, and that certain bit of road also appears a bit further down the frame in them" could potentially have solved it all. It already took long enough to take the pics, reduce them down to a more suitable size with Office Picture Manager once I saw how massive a data load it was (& rotate the vertical ones), then do the synth itself - another quarter hour hinting up those that are likely to be more difficult (i.e. usually not needed for a typical panorama, unless you notice it's dropped one picture for no good reason) isn't really here or there.

"So adding manual hints would maybe only have a very subtle effect"

Although there are a lot of points in the log, I guess there's a much smaller number of matched-point pairs? And you could imagine a manually added pair would be given a higher priority than the matches found by photosynth's algorithm.

So hopefully a small number of manual hints would be enough to set the synth back on track if the automatic matching gets a bit confused.